Human Events

Grenade Walking: Catch the Fever

Back in September, I noted a Wall Street Journal piece about a gentleman named Jean Baptiste Kingery, who was walking not guns, but hand grenades across the border into Mexico.“Horrified” ATF agents were over-ridden by the U.S. Attorney’s office and forced to watch while Kingery’s pineapple express rolled out to the drug cartels, which are not at all shy about lobbing them into crowded areas.

CBS News reports the Kingery case has caught the attention of Fast and Furious investigators:

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, who has reported on this story from the beginning, said on “The Early Show” that the investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)’s so-called “Fast and Furious” operation branches out to a case involving grenades. Sources tell her a suspect was left to traffic and manufacture them for Mexican drug cartels.

Police say Jean Baptiste Kingery, a U.S. citizen, was a veritable grenade machine. He’s accused of smuggling parts for as many as 2,000 grenades into Mexico for killer drug cartels — sometimes under the direct watch of U.S. law enforcement.

Law enforcement sources say Kingery could have been prosecuted in the U.S. twice for violating export control laws, but that, each time, prosecutors in Arizona refused to make a case.

Grenades are weapons-of-choice for the cartels. An attack on Aug. 25 in a Monterrey, Mexico casino killed 53 people.

Anyone who still maintains “gun walking,” and its more explosive “grenade walking” offshoot, were rogue ATF operations that can be firewalled from the rest of the Justice Department can stop pretending to believe that:

Sources tell CBS News that, in January 2010, ATF had Kingery under surveillance after he bought about 50 grenade bodies and headed to Mexico. But they say prosecutors wouldn’t agree to make a case. So, as ATF agents looked on, Kingery and the grenade parts crossed the border — and simply disappeared.

Six months later, Kingery allegedly got caught leaving the U.S. for Mexico with 114 disassembled grenades in a tire. One ATF agent told investigators he literally begged prosecutors to keep Kingery in custody this time, fearing he was supplying narco-terrorists, but was again ordered to let Kingery go.

Of course, everyone at the U.S. Attorney’s office involved in this fiasco has been stricken with a bad case of laryngitis, with complications ranging from reassignment to resignation.

Oh well, at least this was just one joker with a few crates full of grenade parts, right?Wrong:

Attkisson added on “The Early Show” that, in August, Mexican authorities raided Kingery’s stash house and factory, finding materials for 1,000 grenades. He was charged with trafficking and allegedly admitted not only to making grenades, but also to teaching cartels how to make them, as well as helping cartel members convert semi-automatic rifles to fully-automatic. As one source put it: There’s no telling how much damage Kingery did in the year-and-a-half since he was first let go. The Justice Department inspector general is now investigating this, along with “Fast and Furious.”

You can see why the Mexican government is so upset by this Fast and Furious business. The Obama Administration has already done more damage to Mexico than it will ever do to Iran, and the Mexican government wasn’t even plotting to blow up embassies and restaurants.

John Hayward began his blogging career as a guest writer at Hot Air under the pen name "Doctor Zero," producing a collection of essays entitled Doctor Zero: Year One.
He is a great admirer of free-market thinkers such as Arthur Laffer, Milton Friedman, and Thomas Sowell. He writes both political and cultural commentary, including book and movie reviews. An avid fan of horror and fantasy fiction, he has produced an e-book collection of short horror stories entitled Persistent Dread.
John is a former staff writer for Human Events. He is a regular guest on the Rusty Humphries radio show, and has appeared on numerous other local and national radio programs, including G. Gordon Liddy, BattleLine, and Dennis Miller.